Iced Mint Tea & Sympathy
by lucius-complex
Summary: I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you all else melted away - RUMI
1. Chapter 1

I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know you all else melted away - RUMI

1

Tony had not expected it to last. Not this long anyways.

Certainly nowhere this- domesticated.

In between trying to adjust to his new living arrangements and waiting for the other shoe to drop, six months have whistled past like so much wind, transient and fragile like the brief, sacred space between pulses.

Then winter had descended upon them swiftly, and Tony had looked up from his computer one day and realised that Loki had been living in Calatrava tower for six months. Six months, they've been doing this.

For six months Tony Stark has been the occasional (regular, frequent) live-in lover of Asgard's exiled god of mischief, and here he is, still standing, hale and hearthy, deceptively mellowed out. Calm.

Alive.

And in the interim months Loki had discovered ceviche, and shifted his beverage allegiance from martini to iced mint tea, and Tony was still in mourning for his lost drinking buddy.

Especially in light of his having recently lost every drinking buddy.

'Honey, I'm home.'

He came in through the balcony and walked into the kitchen to see Loki about to happily (a god of mischief version of happiness anyways) introduce his chopsticks into a giant bowl of ceviche that was more coriander salad than seafood starter. There is a pile of books on the table, propping up another one which was opened before the bowl.

'I'm not kissing you if you're eating that. You're going to smell like my old granny's herb garden.'

Out of the corner of his eye Tony can see the chopsticks pause for a moment before continuing to delicately flip pieces of greens about in the bowl.

'Not that you particularly care whether we kiss or not,' the billionaire mutters from the bar after it becomes clear that Loki would be ignoring him in favour of his book. Again. As usual.

'Hmmm.'

'Please don't tell me you've started on yet another book.'

'Go away Stark. I'm reading.'

As usual his eyes are irresistibly drawn to the carelessly laced neckline on Loki's tunic, sitting like a corset on his clavicle. There was the shade of last night's bruise peeking from below the nest of silken strings that Loki had not healed. Lovebites. Tony refused to believe he'd missed it, as Loki was usually fastidious about covering up-

But then the idea of Loki deliberately leaving signs of Tony's handiwork is equally preposterous. To leave it deliberately on display like some... thing that tied them together. Like a brand.

It made Tony's stomach churn.

Six months. Why was he still alive? Why has it all not come crashing down around his ears?

'I have to go to SHIELD today,' Tony announced into his swirling drink.

Finally a flicker of attention from the god.

'Six months,' Loki said thoughtfully. 'Time does fly on migard. What do they want?'

'You know they don't tell me a thing anymore,' Tony huffed. 'But if I was to guess; probably renegotiation.'

He begun to hear the coldness creeping like slow-strangling frost into his lover's voice. 'Have they not already divested you of your castle, your riches, your freedom-'

'Now honey, you know its not like that because I chose to move out. Spend more time here.' Although he laughs at the thought of Stark Tower being called a castle. Which he supposed is true in a sense.

'So you chose to live in exile and indignity.'

'I chose to live with you.'

Tony waited, but the god offered no other opinion. He would have given a lot to know what Loki was thinking then, but he knew better than to wish it.

'They're still my friends,' he finally sighed, but somewhere in his voice there is a wince, and Loki had caught that small, involuntary inflection because the god subsequently relinquished his chopsticks and his books and turned around.

'Thou art a fool, son of Stark.' Loki lobbed a thin book at him from the pile on his table. 'Perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with some your migardian literature again.'

Curious, Tony turned the book around; read the title aloud and pursed his lips.

'All the books in the world, and it figures you'd somehow get your hands on Machiavelli,' he grunted.

'All the books of the world, and so little of it worth reading.'

'That's why you never catch me doing it. Filthy habit, like diet and exercise,' Tony put down his drink and looked up. 'Time to go back to my jailer. A kiss from my scheming bride?'

'Your jokes are never half as funny as you think them.'

'Right through the heart, that was. Cut me to the bone. Goodbye cruel god, I'm jumping off the balcony now,' Ironman said as he made his way out, the face plate sliding over to muffle his last words.

'Go, Stark.' Loki always made the same threat when Tony goes to battle. Or to SHIELD. 'And there will be hell to pay if you do not return the way you departed.'

**_~o0o0o~_**

Now that six months had passed with no incident, they'd come to haggle again with him over new terms, which is simply SHIED speak for 'give us more of your tech.'

Six months. Hard to imagine, really. Six months to the day that Loki had stood before the Avengers after their battle with the Girati and calmly announced that he would play the good little exiled alien and leave migard alone, so long as nobody tried to arrest him.

And then he'd looked at Tony with those sly green eyes of his and drawled 'Why, haven't Anthony been regaling you of his ever-willingness to show his houseguest all the lovely sights? From- within and without?' And the way he'd said the words had made it filthy and suggestive enough for Steve to pale and Bruce to turn away and even Tony himself to flinch.

'My brother-' Thor had said, but he had been looking at Tony instead, and the look of hurt and disbelieve on his face was still something Tony has been trying to forget till today.

'Indeed,' Loki had purred. 'Let it not be said that Stark is a man unable to keep his bedchambers warm.'

'You fucking liar, Tony would never-'

The god actually chucked then. 'Oh, you were lied to. But it wasnt by me.'

And they'd all looked at him, and that was the day Tony realised he'd chosen sides. Conciously or unconciously. He'd stepped out of one line - but he wasnt sure where, or who the new territory was. A part of him wondered if he ever will.

It had denigrated rapidly and inevitably into a bartering session after that.

'You will not look for me,' Loki had warned. 'Not if you wish your precious city to stay unmolested.'

'Your magic is curtailed. Father has-'

'Do you really think I lack the means to level a migardian city to dust if I wanted to? Think brother, thick as you are. Think of to whom you speak to and tell me, when Loki has ever lacked of methods even as he lacked of means.'

'And what guarantees are we to have save the words from your lying tongue?'

'Your little mortal is still alive, is he not? Does he look particularly harmed to you?' The god's voice turned from mirth to icy. 'Therefore look not a gift horse in the mouth, least he chomps at the bridle you try to slip on and severe more than a finger. Now I'm sure you have a great deal to say amongts yourself, so I'll take my leave - and I do look forward to playing house together with you, Anthony,' Loki bowed mockingly at Ironman. And then he had vanished, leaving Tony to the wrath of the friends he had betrayed.

The accusations of course, rained down hard and fast in Loki's wake.

'Tony, how could you? You could have been compromised, and we trusted you- with our lives! You could have gotten all of us killed!'

'I had one roll in the hay. One!' was what Tony had wanted to say.

Instead, what came out was – 'Loki's intel saved you.'

Clint had introduced him to a very different side then. 'You stupid fuck, you only know how to think with your dick. What if it hadn't been true?'

And how does Tony answer what he really wants to say – because I knew he was telling the truth? How the does he make a ring of angry people see something he can't explain to himself?

'So this is how low you'd go for your own selfish pleasure; sex with an alien who holds your city for ransom.' Steve's voice was broken, low. 'Is everything is a game to you Stark – playing Ironman? Playing Avenger? Did you get bored, is that why you need to – him?'

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing to say to anything really, so Tony had saved his breath.

Eventually days passed into weeks and he got sick of running through an endless gamut of excuses and justifications, defending his relationship. They were excuses he'd never said with much conviction – things he didn't believe, didn't really care about, because the ultimate reason was still this: that Tony Stark does what he wants, what felt good to him. And he's never been good at lying to anybody; himself included.

He'd punched Clint the day he heard what they'd called Tony behind his back. Traitor. Turncoat. Loki's whore. Steve had shouted and Natasha had slammed doors and Tony had caught the look of quiet grieve on Bruce's face, which had hurt in places he didn't know existed, but still he couldn't-

He couldn't bring himself to do anything about it.

Despite the split lip and torn ligaments both him and Clint hadn't regretted that fight. This Tony knew for a fact.

It was a relief for both of them, to finally be able to release some of that anger and sense of betrayal.

But his friendship with Barton was over, he knew. Steve and Bruce and Thor he might yet win back one day, when the right amount of time had passed and the right amount of words were said. But not Barton. They'd chosen sides, and the decision was irreconcilable.

C'est la vie.

**_~o0o0o~_**


	2. Chapter 2

With love you dont bargain. There, the choice is not yours - RUMI

2

He supposed he should count himself lucky that Fury was still using his iron fist, velvet glove approach. But then he was Tony Stark, with much more to bargain with than the average man, and Fury had always been a greedy son of a bitch.

One thing Tony knew for sure was this: the arc reactor will never be on the table. Not even for Loki, and definitely not for himself. But everything else – Tony watched it disappearing between the subtle shifts of boundaries being drawn and re-drawn in the sand, swallowed by Fury's hungry, reptilian jaws. In return for his inventions and wealth, he received secrecy – something Tony didn't care much about for himself, but Loki...

Were Loki ever to be discovered by the world at large, the god would find himself at the hostile end of every weapon of mass destruction ever invented by man. Loki might scoff, but Tony knew what these weapons are capable of because he'd invented most of them; invented the very bitter threat of having the fruits of his own skill and creativity be a possible cause of death to a god - a god who had become his lover.

And so they sat facing each other like old chess masters, he and Fury; and every time they met Tony thought he knew how far he would go before pulling the plug on keeping Loki to himself a little while longer. Thinks to himself that this time, he'd draw a clean line.

Tony Stark had always thought himself a man who understood the nature of secrets, but he was only now beginning to understand that there was no such thing as clean line, not where secrets were concerned. Because really, how much more could he give up? How many patents and intellectual properties, how many schematics?

He thought he'd drawn a clean line; except he's finding that every day the line changes and Tony watches this happen; doubts trickling like fine sand through a moral crust he once thought solid .

**_~o0o0o~_**

Tony is now grounded - apparently forever, but this was a state of affairs that suited him fine, bizarrely. There was a part of him who'd sighed in relief at being forced into incubation. Imagine that. Tony Stark, grateful for a break. Six months with the god of mischief had definitely tamed him something serious

He's not often honest with himself, a man like him who'd perfected the art of self-denial to fine form; but Tony could admit that the effect of pitching two moody, restless, stubborn, over-intelligent ex-enemies together had somehow served to cancel them both out in the aggression stakes.

These days, their definitions of impatience was sometimes so diverse as to be comic; thus did Tony find Loki; fastidious, evil-tempered, impatient Loki, easily pleased by the most routine of acts. These days, if Loki duelled at all, it was usually in the bed, and almost always with his mouth – come to think of it, there is little of trouble from Silvertounge that didn't begin with his mouth.

But Tony could not complain, not whilst he had Loki to himself. He'd learned first-hand the day-to-day affectations of immortality, such as the willingness to indulge in small acts for hours, even days.

Because Loki kissed for hours. Literally hours, and did not find this strange or overly endearing. Sometimes he asked, and oftentimes he abruptly yanked Tony away from whatever he was doing and teleported him on the bed; to do nothing more than kiss the remaining daylight away. Tony used to get bored, to want to hurry things along, but Loki was unmovable, and he soon learnt to obey and experience for himself the newness of an endless cycle of stroking tongues. Sometimes he too, forgot the time and the awareness of the world around him, and would finally look up in amazement at the midnight sky, and down at the amused green eyes of his lover.

And then finally, and only then would they make love, and that as well moved fast as well as slow, chased the tails of shooting stars, or moved as imperceptibly and as patiently as planetary rotation.

He wasn't sure if he could ever give it up.

Tony knows that he's trying his darnest to stay still, but the lines beneath his feet keep moving, like a gently rocking ocean that seems intent on carrying him further away from all he ever knew, to god-alone knows where.

**_~o0o0o~_**

Despite the god of mischief's assertions to the contrary, Tony did still live and work at Stark Towers - he was not a man in exile, although he now avoids the floors common to the Avengers. His labs are there, along with the Stark Helipad and his G650, and no matter how good a lay Loki is he's not about to give up Stark Tower in a fit of temper just because of his current status with a dangerous god.

Within a month of their strange relationship Loki had started walking into Stark Towers as if Tony had given him carte blanch to the place. The billionaire had been worried at first, then relieved and finally entertained (with a side of horror thrown in), when the humour of the situation finally settled in. Chief amongst Loki's retained arsenal of talents is turning invisible, so unless JARVIS reported his presence to the team, nobody knew of his presence, not even Thor (which never ceased to surprise him; weren't gods have some sort of super sense about them?)

Loki had once sneaked into an Avengers 'dinner' – a tense and sullen one to be sure, but still an effort from both sides to bridge the divide – and given Tony a blow job under the table. He's not sure till today how he survived that experience. Or managed to make it out of there with his pride intact.

Loki's penchant for mischief kept Tony on his toes, that's for sure. And sometimes on his other body parts as well. It was just as well he was part human dynamo, to dare consort with a god. Powered from an endless source like the sun, Tony's body was an irony of endless summers ticking its away to eventual implosion.

But Loki is winter; still and peaceful and beautiful to lull you into a false sense of security before turning completely bipolar and howling through the shutters and ripping out trees. Luring laughing, golden-haired firstborn heirs out with the promising sparkle of snow crystals, only to smoother them under cold wet hands beneath the frozen crackling jigsaw of a lake.

A completely bipolar weatherstorm. Or maybe ADHD.

Over the months of living together Tony had come to realise that Loki had some sort of internal angst that would keep building up and needed sooner or later to be let out in some short, intense spout, where he would be at his most destructive and fragile. Then, after he's torn around the room (or the valley, or the street, or Iceland) howling and spraying ice on everything like Jack Frost he'd end up hiding on the ledge of something tall and precarious,(though not at Stark Tower, never at Stark Tower) staring at his precious stars for whole days at a stretch.

He wondered if Loki knew just how predictable his cycles of boom and bust are, not just to Tony, but to The Avengers and even SHIELD.

He wondered if the god of mischief realised how lost he sometimes looked.

**_~o0o0o~_**


	3. Chapter 3

_May be children should control the world - RUMI_

3

The problem with Loki as always, was that he had such an incredibly short fuse. Especially when taking into account that his lover is the bleeding god of mischief, Loki sure doesn't know how to take a joke.

Hence the god's battle-ready stance and electric eyes; green sparks shooting threateningly from one outreached hand as Loki faced off with Iron Man on the barren, wintry grounds of Central Park whilst civilians scattered and ran screaming away from their face-off, thinking that Ironman was chasing down some hardened criminal mastermind.

Hah. If only they knew exactly who the slim blond man in black really was.

'Tony Stark!' the disguised god hissed. 'You _dare_ to aim that weapon at m-'

A split second later Tony's canon-sized snowball hit him directly on his chest, making him stagger in surprise, and it was all Tony could do to try to hang on to his enormous snow gun whilst doubled over with laughter.

'You will _die_ today, Man of Imprudence.'

'How does it feel to be the one with the cold wet slush dripping off you this time?'

'You forget that I am hardly able to register the cold here,' Loki reminded him icily.

This is true. Loki feels no cold, and outside of disguise purposes his clothing altered not from season to season. Tony hasn't seen the god of mischief in his full regalia for six months. Loki has put his armour away- to where, he would not reveal. Whilst even the much heftier Thor had exchanged his bare-arms look for leathered fittings and carried a cloak, Loki wore the same black tunic with only subtle variation from day to day; material as light and thin as cotton; although from their incredible range Tony knows no ordinary seams keep his garments together.

The temperature on Loki's skin never changed no matter where he was or what season – it was cool to the touch and hard, with less give than a human body. The hardness of a god, Tony supposes.

Tony grinned to himself. He was intimately acquaint ted with Loki's hardness by now.

'Maybe not the cold, but let me tell you, there was a _whole_ lot of silly on your face when that snowba-'

A spilt second later, the mirth is rather violently knocked out of him by the sudden gale that poured from Loki's outstretched hands. Twisting backwards, Ironman tried to grab the park bench behind him and ended up tripping over it, head over feet.

For several minutes he just lied there gasping, the breath knocked from his lungs. Ok. Next time he'd laugh from further away. _Much_ further away.

'You sneaky little shit. That was against the rules.'

'Oh, do live a little dangerously, Stark.'

'Yeah?' Tony raised a gauntlet, watching his lover's eyebrows arch in challenge and surprise. 'Why don't you try this one for size?' he grunted, and expelled a cloud of laughing gas.

Loki coughed in surprised, stifled a high pitched whine in his throat, and vanished.

'Like that do you?' Tony grinned as he hauled himself off the ground. 'Good thing I broke out the Playsuit for today's harmless lil turn about the park-'

A split second later a giant snowball encompassed his head like a second helmet and landed Ironman back in the snow again. When he recovered, it was to Loki's weight bearing down upon his chest, deceptively light.

'Do you yield?'

'What? Speak English man, you're not on some foreign planet any more.'

Loki trailed a suggestive finger along Iron Man's breast plate. 'I'd rather show you. If you like.'

The sudden direction in their conversation resulted in a protracted bout of spluttering. 'What, in a public park? Are you craz- no, actually that sounds kind of kinky, would we have the time?'

'You know I do not like to be hurried,' Loki frowned, although from the anticipatory way he removed Tony's helmet, the god was definitely receptive to persuasion.

'You know I've never done it up on a tree before, and I'm betting neither have you.'

'And if we are interrupted?' Loki asked, which was basically polite-speak for 'if we are stopped half-way, people will die'.

'Have some faith; your boyfriend's got some aces up his sleeves.'

'Hmm,' the god said through lowered lashes, voice smoky. 'And I do so want you, Stark.'

Tony was already starting to unravel as he struggled to sit up and push his lover off, veins rapidly thrumming with fresh heat even against the cold. 'God but you make me crazy. Can you get us up that tree?'

'Yes,' the god nodded curtly and snapped his fingers before Tony could blink.

A disconcerting _whoosh_ later, they were perched on a giant Lebanese cedar.

'Uh, quite a bit higher than I anticipated,' he said, digging his nails into the tree branch as he turned towards his deity lover. 'Maybe it wasn't such a good ide-'

The rest of his words were cut off by cold, hard lips, a hand that slithered up his neck to hold him steady, and a body that blocked off the cold and wind, even as his armour was being stripped and vanished piece by piece.

'You're starting to know _way_ too much about dismantling my armour-' Tony finally broke off to grouse at one point, only to be wrestled down and ruthlessly kissed again. By the time Loki finally relinquished him, they were both naked, and Tony was suddenly confronted with arms that could bend iron and the most perfectly proportioned thighs he's ever seen on a human being-

Make that non-human being.

'Dear god, I think I've discovered a belated fear of heights-.'

'Don't be ridiculous, you love to fly.'

'That is, a belated fear of heights straddled from the branch of a tree.'

The god of mischief reached over and pulled Tony onto his lap, his legs parting automatically as he found himself squashed against Loki's chest.

'Oh, you won't be straddling a tree, Stark,' Loki breathed as long fingers cupped his buttocks, effortlessly lifting him as Tony instinctively gripped his shoulders to keep from tilting over, there to stare (to fall, really) into a pair of forest-green eyes dilated with lust.

'You'd be straddling _me_.'

**_~o0o0o~_**

'Well. That was a close call. I was so sure those kids were going to look up at some point.'

Loki landed like a cat before him, on the balls of his feet and straightened his tie. 'Do you even know what a dignified silence is, Stark?'

'Taking a guess,' Ironman grunted. 'Any place I'm not present at?'

'Quite so,' Loki said pleasantly, and shot him with a face full of snow.

Tony flew backwards into a tree, mouth flung opened in surprise and subsequently spitting out the avalanche of snow that came crashing down from the branches whilst Loki's smug, inconsequential voice drifted out at him.

'And how does Migardian winter taste at this time of year?'

'Why dont you try it for yourself,' the mortal grumbled as he picked himself off the bank of snow and watched in bemusement as Loki stuck out his tongue. And that really, was what they ended up spending the next few minutes doing. Privately, Tony figured this was the only time he'd get to stick his tongue out at a homicidal god and get away with it.

They stuck their tongues out at each other and shot (playful, _violent_) snowballs and chased all the civilians away from the park with Loki's mock hail so that nobody would get hurt (or discovered). Tony broke two swings and Loki the monkeybar, but wasn't that what all that money for and Tony_ loved_ it, he loved _this_, he loved-

He simply loved.

It was a mild winter afternoon in Central Park when Tony Stark lowered his snowgun and watched Loki eating a handful of snow that he'd randomly scooped up from the side of a fence and thought to himself, really, the god of mischief had the soul of a child. Perhaps a child damaged beyond repair, but still a _child_.

Perhaps their souls connected because they were both children.

If only the other Avengers could see this, Tony thought. See how harmless curiosity looked on Loki's face. How wide-eyed and affable he could be, when pleased. How surprisingly willing Loki was to go along with Tony on one of his silly migardian jaunts.

That he could even be seen eating snow on occasion, and how Tony delighted in calling him the cheapest date ever-

That he could-

_'Opps,_' the god of mischief suddenly said from somewhere, and Tony Stark's bubble bursts on that mild winter afternoon in Central Park.

In that brief moment, a very quiet moment amidts the snow and patient trees, a grief came over him, and Tony Stark, heir to one of the richest and most advanced cities in the world, felt as if he was on the precipice of loosing everything again. His sense of loss swept silent and feather-light; passing over him the way water would pass through a pipe. And then he was empty again, with only the memory of what had passed.

Then Tony could marvel that perhaps, it was enough that he could see Loki this way. Perhaps the memories they made now would be enough to shield him, to shield them both from what was to come.

So thinking, he shouldered his snow gun and whistled as he walked towards that well-loved voice; like a heat-seaking missile. Like home.

He found Loki in a clearing, staring forlornly at a mould of half-melted snowmen, and what could have been with a fort with some imagination.

'You melted that kid's snowman!' Tony accused.

Loki looked heavenward in a gesture of ironic resignation. Then he hovered a hand over the ice and a row of icicles rose from it, jagged and sharp as knives.

Tony took a step back. 'Are you making missiles, because I didn't bring my white flag and its hard to get my underwear out of the suit- oh, oh wow. This is _beautiful_ - I didn't know you could do that.'

Loki surveyed his handiwork, an ice castle big enough for ten children to comfortably crawl into. The details were a perfect replica of Odin's Asgardian palace; a vista Tony had only previously seen through one of Loki's lurid illusions when they'd stayed up one night and talked about the alien world he came from.

'I trust this is adequate recompense?'

Tony stared with bug-eyed envy at the minuteness of the details. 'Yeah. The little buggers don't deserve this much magic.'

'It is of no consequence,' Loki shruged. 'It will stand till spring.'

'I think I'm jealous. You never made any ice castles for _me._'

Loki's lips pursed into a thin line for several moments before quirking, as if his current display of good humour has been reluctantly dragged out of him; but he finally shruged and gracefully conceded defeat, and Tony internally crowed.

'And what would you have of Loki's talents, Son of Stark?'

Tony pursed his lips. 'How big can you make one of these?'

'Very large indeed.'

'Statue of Liberty large?' Tony asked archly.

A sparkle entered the god's jungle green eyes. 'If you wish it.'

'Then make a sculpture of _this._' Ironman said, and struck up a manly pose.

**_~o0o0o~_**

So it wasn't quite what Tony had expected, Loki's artistic liberties being a touch – twisted.

But for the rest of the winter of 2013, New York became home to a perfectly rendered, 412 foot sculpture of Tony Stark striking a manly pose in his Dolce & Gabbana Y-front briefs.

The views were particularly grand from the Chrysler and the Empire State Building, and if one rode the elevator up to the Bank of America, on the southeast corner of 6th Avenue, one would be standing in front of a magnificent vista of Tony's crotch covering an entire ceiling to floor window.

Tourism for that winter alone increased by fourteen million, particularly to the areas beside Stark Tower, which Tony rather fortunately didn't really go back to much anymore.

As for Fury, well, sufficed to say he lived up to his name.

**_~o0o0o~_**


	4. Chapter 4

If hell is the only place where I can touch your hair, I feel sorry for the ones who'll go to heavem - RUMI

4

Tony knew that he could sometimes be a blindly optimistic man. Sure, some people liked to call it by other, less flattering names, like 'stubborn' (Pepper), 'rebellious' (Bruce), and even 'delusional' (Loki, pffthhh) but Tony soldiered on, because he knew doing things the right way (his way) is the secret to success, and if there's one thing Starks know all about, it's success.

Given all this, it's a little disgruntling that even the buoyantly amenable Thor seemed to have trouble sharing in his optimism of Tony + Loki = Nobody Dead.

'Man of Iron, I honour you as my brother. But you do not know Loki as I,' Thor's expression reminded Tony of one of the painfully earnest accountants that overrun his offices at the end of September.

'Whatever it is, I'm sure you're going to tell me all about it - again.'

'Since he was a callow youth has Loki ever been glib at weaving his stories to charm the maidens of Asgard.'

'Yes, but I'm hardly a maiden, Thor.'

'So skilful is mine brother's tongue that he has beguiled the Allfather himself many times-'

'I'm skilful too,' Tony shrugged. 'Ask Pepper, she'd be the first to confirm I'm the A+ bullshit king o' the hill.'

'You are not as similar as you hope to think.'

'You're right; I could never get my hair to lie still like that.'

'Shield brother Stark, thou art not listening,' Thor chided.

'And you Thor, you're not _looking_. None of you are. Loki and I are together, yes, but that's because we also have a deal. And that deal is so long as there's no harm done and nothing explodes; yours truly is not giving him up. Are we clear on this?' He held up a hand when the viking essayed to speak again. 'I'm not going to break my promise to your brother, and there's all there is to it.'

'Why must you- you do not know what you risk-'

'For the umpteenth time, I'm not helpless, Thor. And if it makes you feel any better, I promise to use protection.'

'Protection?'

Tony sighed. God save him from Asgardian gods who took everything so literally. 'Yes Thor. I have a suit, remember.'

'It is not your safety I fear from my brother. It is your heart.'

'It's all right big guy. Bunch of people tried to mess with it before.' Tony tapped the arc reactor on his chest. 'Nothing I haven't been able to repair.'

However the only thing that joke earned him was more knitted brows, which was starting to really get on his nerves.

'You take this too lightly. I had hoped that you would see reason-'

Tony ran a frustrated hand through his hair. ''Reason? Why don't you share some of _yours_, like why you insist week after week on trying to pick my brain and slip ideas into my skull whilst claiming to back me up; I mean is Loki still even family to you? Am I still your shield brother, Thor?'

The blond god looked offended. 'Of course you are and will always be.'

'Just like you and Loki will always be brothers, huh.'

Thor sat back amd regarded him sternly. 'Mine brother and I have a connection that spans twice a thousand years, something you will not understand as a mortal, Man of Iron. There is none that will render our bond; our lives and deaths are as intimately intertwined as lovers.'

'Yet you seek to render _my_ bond,' Tony snapped back, for he misliked that hollow voice, the arrogant, echoing silence that followed this dark pronouncement. This sort of swishy, double entendre was more Loki's talent, and Tony mistrusted any similarities between the two gods; mistrusted the long history shared that that he could never hope to understand.

'For your own good!'

'Oh yeah? Well, you are not very convincing, Point Break, you haven't been for a long time.'

'You sound ever more like him now, did you know?' The deity looked at him with sorrow-filled eyes. 'Tell me, is mine brother well?'

'He is.'

'Does he ever ask-' Thor looked away when he caught the expression of pity that Tony can't quite hide, and cleared his throat. 'Do not grieve for me, Brother Tony. I know Loki does not spare his thoughts for me.'

It was a shame to see such a bright boisterous light brought down like this. Tony was reminded, of all things, of Tinkerbelle's light going out when the world lost faith in fairies.

'Thor-'

'Never you mind,' the blond god said, his voice gruff. 'Remember what we have spoken about these last months, Man of Iron. All said and done, he is neither human or Asgardian, but a creature of _Jotun_. Therefore his actions cannot be precipitated-'

'Humanity is not all it's cracked up, last I checked. And Asgard has its fair share of traitors, thieves and turncoats.' Tony pushed his chair back. 'This is pointless talk and I have to get back, his highness will be starving by now and prone to fits of tantrum, which I'm sure you'd know all about-'

When Thor's giant brows knitted together, they looked like wresting caterpillers; the type you see on the Sasame Street puppets. '_Loki?_ Starve?'

'Yeah, we always eat together. Evil overlords have dinner too, you know.'

'Then I fear mine brother has deceived you.'

Tony could feel a slow and familiar irritability grip him again. 'Yeah? And what it is about now?'

Thor frowned. 'I am not trying to cast stones between you, shield brother Tony, but we do not need to eat every day. The practice has ever been one formed around fellowship, not truly the specific need of nourishment. As gods we can go without eating for a week and suffer no ill effects.'

Tony's mouth fell open_. Fellowship. _Suddenly he realised why Loki had sulked for days that one time he'd asked Pepper to join them for dinner. If dinner wasn't compulsory for his lover, then Loki showed up for one reason and one alone-

He showed up for _Tony_, and had all along – right from the get go.

Well. How about that; you're never past the age of blushing, apparently. Learn something new every day.

'You look happy, friend Stark.'

The blond god was watching him shrewdly; Tony gave not a flying fuck because he suddenly needs to be somewhere else post haste. Somewhere in an apartment in downtown Manhattan, an alien god of mischief was making ready to pretend a hunger he didn't feel in order to 'have fellowship'; and Tony would go home and give it to him, not sit here and listen to Thor's well-meaning but misguided slander.

He tapped his watch pointedly. 'Love to stay and chat but and I have a dinner to make; and just so you know I'm not coming back next week or ever, if all you want to talk about is more s-'

'There is something else,' Thor suddenly blurted out. 'Although I had hoped it would not come to this-'

_Heaven save him from Asguarian attempts at furtiveness._

Tony huffed. 'You know buddy, you've never been the best person at keeping a poker face. Now are you finally ready to spill all, after months of arm-twisting me into all these small talks?'

'Son of Stark-' The emotions that crossed Thor's face were probably the most complex he'd ever seen on the usually artless deity, and the closest to defeat.

Then finally he sighed, and the sound was like a thousand bellows, and for some reason a shiver ran down Tony's spine because he didn't like the timing.

'Yes. I will tell you. If you will comport yourself a moment longer; by the nines, I will tell you.'

For one moment he was tempted to leave regardless, even though he knew all their ridiculous tea sessions had been building to his moment for months. Today was the day of Thor's big reveal; the one he had hinted at and danced around since news of his brother's affair was brought to light; the one that involved Something Horrible In Caps That Was Going To Happen To Loki if Tony didn't drink copious amounts of peppermint out of delicate red porcelain and pry it out of the thunder god real soon.

If Tony was honest, he'd annouce that he didn't want to hear any of it – that he was sick to death of secrets, tired of trying to weed out truth from lie and friend from foe. Tired of always trying to find his footing in alien, unfamiliar territory.

But unfamiliar territory was where Loki had come from, and if Tony ever wanted to understand him, then he needed to wade into this marshy, amebous space.

With a muttered oath he sat back down again. 'Spill them beans then, Campbell.'

'I will tell you what I know. But I do not know everything.'

'Then who would? The Allfather?'

'He would know more than me, but no more than a warrior would, albeit one with the most powerful scrying glass onto the world,' Thor exhaled heavily. 'We who choose the way of the sword do not walk the silken spider-paths of fey sorcery. It is anathema to us.'

'So Loki's magic is, something of a.. rare thing, in Asgard?'

'It is. Alas, from youth this path mine brother has showed the most interest and promise in has always been considered a perversity. All assumed initially it was a product of being overly attached to his mother the queen, but as the years passed and the mark of his path solidified ever more before him did we realise Loki's true shape – as _ergi_; deviant.'

Tony shook his head, fighting confusion and gnawing irritation at hearing his lover referred to in such exclusionary terms. 'What do you mean by that? And what does his sorcery have to do with this big fate thing you keep hinting at?'

'I was but a babe when it happened, but I will tell you what I know. It is the darkest portents of the downfall of my world which mine mother, the fairest Frigga revealed. For she is not merely Queen of Asguard and permitted to sit on the Hlidskjalf, she was once also Asgard's most powerful sorceress, and until Loki took her place, her prophetic vision has no equal.'

'Are you saying- so Loki and mom can see into the future because they do that magic wavy fingers thing?'

'Nay, shield brother Tony, only Loki has it, the day he surpassed our queen mother in skill. The Prophecy can but inhabit the body of one sorcerer, and differently for each. It has since passed on to mine brother, but I fear it has also changed him much.' Sorrow carved lines of weariless into the god's face. 'He was.. carefree, before that came to be.'

'And what did mammy say to you about this vision, big guy?'

Thor pressed his lips together. 'That I may not reveal onto you as an outsider.'

Tony blinked. 'That's all you're giving me to go with?'

'I cannot reveal more, for the fate of mine world hangs in balance;' Thor confessed, '-as do my own destiny as Loki's brother and therefore both his foil and his shield. I am what stands between mine brother's own survival… and the survival of Asgard.'

'Well then. Bully for you. Clearly nothing stands in the way of your dutiful ways.'

'_Listen_ to me, Tony. There are things preordained- things set in motion a millennial before your time or mine that none may interfere with. Loki's path is preordained. He has been doomed for darkness from birth-'

Anger scored his veins, crept into his voice. 'This is ridiculous; I'm not listening to this dipstick shit a second longer.'

'You are mine sworn brother in all but blood, but you do not know the_ true_ nature of that you are binding yourself to. Out of the love I bear you both –'

'Then tell me what the flying fuck I don't know.' Tony shot out of his chair and grabbed his jacket.

'Stark!' Thor's voice broke as he called out after him.' If you follow Loki, know that you follow him onto _hell.'_

Tony turned around, his voice a frigid counterpoint to the smoking temper within.

'If hell is where he ends up, then hell is where I'll bloody _go_,' he avowed before violently slamming the door shut.

**_~o0o0o~_**


End file.
